Last year, Netflix announced their ‘audio only‘ feature which allowed Android users the chance to ignore the visuals of shows and movies: focusing entirely on audio.
The film streaming giant is diving deeper into the audio realm and taking pitches and is also looking to hire an executive to lead its audio push.
“Podcasts are an excellent way for fans to connect with our stories and talent, and our marketing team plans to make more of them,” Jonathan Bing, spokesman for Netflix.
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Unbeknownst to many, Netflix has already over 30 podcasts to their catalogue featuring shows like We Are Netflix, The Crown: Official Podcast, Netflix is a Daily Joke, Okay Now Listen and Strong Black Lead, to mention afew.
Netflix is facing major competition from other music & podcast streaming giants. Spotify is known for their ‘exclusive podcast deals’ with Joe Rogan Experience, Joe Budden podcast and The Michelle Obama podcast.
They also announced a podcasting deal with Warner Music Group to create podcasts about music writers behind the labels’ most successful songs. A Prince Harry and Meghan Markle hosted podcast is also underway this year.
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Apple recently launched in-app subscriptions allowing podcast creators to make money from their shows as well listeners making money using affiliate links. Earlier this year, Spotify also announced focus on engagement with interactive polls, subscriptions during their Stream On event in March 2021.
Although Netflix executives have stressed that they’re not eager to diversify beyond their core business of streaming, some podcast producers are hoping the company could still emerge as a bigger financial backer for audio creatives.
“It’s exciting to see more buyers of original content in the audio space,” said Marissa Hurwitz, an agent in WME’s digital department, referring to Netflix.
Netflix is delving deep into podcasting which sounds exciting and opens up a whole new window of not only how audio content is produced, but also WHO its targeted at.
